Equiinet’s recently launched BackupPilot is a backup product designed for SME and education and particularly to address problems with the backup of laptops which are rapidly overtaking desktop PCs. A suitable backup solution which does not rely on users to manually backup their mobile devices is an imperative for such organizations as revealed by a recent survey of schools by Equiinet. The survey uncovered that most schools do not have a robust policy to protect work data (which includes information such as lesson plans and students e-portfolios) on teachers laptops, relying instead on individuals to remember to manually backup.

With Equiinet’s BackupPilot system, client software is installed on each laptop to automatically perform backups whenever the laptop is connected to the internet. The BackupPilot system is fully automatic once the first full backup has been made (to a removable device which is physically transferred to a remote site), backup data identified and backup schedules created. Further backups which are only of smaller file amendments (compressed and encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption) are transmitted over a broadband connection. Conveniently, backup schedules can be configured and managed at one central location or locally if desired. Normal PC operation is possible while Equiinet’s BackupPilot is running.